Neil's Birthday

Yesterday was Neil's birthday.  He booked himself a doctors appointment to get the results of his blood work back, why book on your birthday???  He said he wont forget the date that way.  Pretty goofy not what I wanna do on my birthday.  But I went with him and we went for lunch and then we went to look at a truck we had decided this spring was the time my truck needed to be replaced since it had a lot of kms on it and no warranty left and it needed a few repairs (and new tires) and we thought get rid of it before spending a lot of money on it.

So I had a list of wants and needs in my new truck and this one has everything off both lists :) totally didn't expect that but its perfect.  We even got 0% financing, that's pretty sweet too.  I'm super excited I just wanna drive everywhere haha, one would think it was my first new vehicle but its just so much more than the last one that we kinda cheaped out on.  Also has auto start, dont think I could live without that now that I've had it for 9 years.  But if below -4*C it turns on heated seats and steering wheel as well :)

(whole view)

(metallic steel, looks dark blue to me)

(inside, so many electronics, 

and so easy to change whats on the dash)

(gear shift is a button, 4wd, trailer brakes built in,

 no navigation but that can be added if I wanted, 

not sure I need it yet)

(cloth heated seats, with center console, also has heated steering wheel)

(cubby holes under back seat floor mat, 

removable and holds 8 beer and ice haha)

(fold flat floors and split rear benches)

(bedliner included)

(pretty fancy dual chrome tipped exhaust)

(20" tires, not sure if they are better than 16s or not

 but he said everyone wants them)

I can't wait till I get to haul with it too, can haul up to 9200 lbs, that's crazy!  My trailer fully loaded with horses and tack is less than 6000 so should be no problem at all.

Afterwards we headed to Brooks for supper with his family so we could take it for a drive, drives pretty nice on the highway even if we were detoured through a gravel road cause of an accident and made my truck dusty, it's gonna be hard to keep clean being so dark, no different than my green one I guess.  We went back to his moms after for cake and presents then headed home it worked out real good.

(we went to Denny's it was good)

(Neil and his weird eyes had the 

honey jalapeno sriracha bacon burger)

(he got a branding torch from his mom and dad, 

tried lighting it with a lighter)

(Neil and Carlos having cheesecake)

(I got him a wallet and these coffee print for his office)

I laughed at Neil case I got a new truck for his birthday he just said wait till you see what happens on your birthday....not sure what that meant????

We Are In!!!

So after the race weekend we got a few more days of drywall fixes in the house, the plumber come and finished hooking everything up and we had the cleaning ladies out and we were ready to move in, just had to wait on the walk through.  Well she was coming Thursday and so on Wednesday we went up to Red Deer to look at Farm Fair.  Was a pretty good day, even got to see a few people we knew and a pink tractor....couldn't talk Neil into buying it though :(

(Just one of 5 rooms of stuff they had there)

Then Thursday she come and we talked about all the stuff we liked, we tried out everything (found out a tap on the bathtub leaks) And stuff that needs more work (a window is crooked, the patio door opened the wrong way, the furnace made weird noises, and we had no light in the dining room).   Well she was gonna check on all those and said the furnace was a recall and she hired out plumber to fix that and the furnace.  The window would get fixed in spring cause sometimes cracks siding if its too cold out.

(checking on the mouldings)

(filling out the paperwork)

She said the door was wrong but we like it like that and so we are leaving it, and the chandelier was just missed, she ordered one and they are coming this week to put it in.  But after that she gave us the OK to move in!!!  Yay, too bad I was in a 3 day clinic starting the next day.  But still yay!  That evening we moved a couple chairs over and a basket of stuff and we had cocktail hour in front of the fireplace :)  Didn't do much else till the next Monday when I was done the clinic.

(Pantry goodies)

(filling the fridge)

(living room furniture)

And Jessie.  Ya I have decided to sell her, shes a super nice horse but shes just not got enough show experience and neither do I so we fluster and don't get much done.  I love riding her and practicing on her but shes too nice a horse to just sit around her when i have other horses I like to ride too.  I also plan on selling Dee and Bailey and we will see how Trio turns out, I think she is gonna be a giant but Ill wait till shes started and got a decent amount of riding on her before I even think of selling her. I'm not in a real hurry to sell, was thinking spring when people are looking although have had a little interest in Dee, we will see how it goes after I keep riding her more and more, shes kinda fun.

My Little Pony

So I did it, LOL I got me a pony.  Not a horse I call a pony but a real under 14.2 pony!  Shes only 13 hands, 13 years old ans she is so broke she is just awesome.

(these are the sellers pics from her ad.

  Not that great but I dunno if I would buy a horse

 from a picture anyways going to go see her)

I wasn't looking for a pony.....well not really, I had pmed a few people about one here and there and never found one I really liked.  And I wanted to sell a horse or 2 of mine first before I got too many again. On going problem I have, I sure find it easy to collect :)  But I want them to be useful too so trying to keep it reasonable around here.  HAHA Like that is gonna happen....but I try.

Anyways Shirley from Ride a Good Horse blog tagged me in an ad on Facebook and I had to go look.  She was a 7 year olds rodeo horse, he barrel raced, pole bended, roped.  He rode her down the gravel rode "cause it sounds cool" (on the gravel)  and chased cows on her.   He's selling cause he wants to rope more and he's been riding his big horse more and more for that.  Exactly what I was hoping for.  And she's not really a beginner pony shes too much and way too fast for that, which I also wanted cause I don't need to steal a pony from a beginner, they are hard enough to find.

(my first glimpse of her)

(shes a little fat)

(but good, she just stood in the middle of the yard 

while I saddled her and 

the owner went to look for a bridle I could use)

Well I was going to Calgary the next day after I talked to her and so I asked if I could stop by on the way and she said yes, so I did, bright and early at 9:30 I was there and rode her in the pasture with her buddies, she tried going to them but never got upset when I said no and just did what I wanted.  She is actually really nice, more like a horse than a pony, she stopped when I asked, she backed up, and boy can she turn, and her trot is so comfortable.

 (at home :) )

(look at those ears I just love them)

(she stands weird, shes a little worried about getting close to Dee)

(follower)

(shes quite small compared to Trio, lol)

(I could take a million pics shes just adorable)

Finding tack for her is a bigger problem than I thought.  At least my saddle fits her.  I bought a bridle and shes in a correction bit so I went to K & K Livestock and they ordered one in for me which is still not here.  And I ordered reins off a Facebook group as well as a blanket.  Reins are by far the hardest thing to find, they are all so long!  But I got a split pair and I think I can make a single roping rein out of an old rope like I have before if I need to.

I went back to pick her up on the Tuesday afterwards and on the way home stopped at Doug's and asked  him to try and find me a horse.  Yikes that was scary but so excited to get back into cutting.  If only the pony cut lol.

New House

So in case you didn't know...hear it on Facebook or something we are getting a new house this fall.  I am super excited about it, its been a long go.  I'll start way back when we got married in 2004.

We were talking about a new house, Neil said this one was old and we should get a new one built.  He was saving money had stocks and when they hit a certain amount we would cash them in and it would be about half a house and get a mortgage for the other half.   OK sounds good.  I didn't want to live in a house where the roof leaks down the walls, the basement is cinder block and its caving in, the basement filled with water, the windows were so old and let in cold air, and there was no insulation left to speak of.  I never knew it then but I tell everyone now, don't live in your mother in laws house.  I like my Mother in law...we don't have a lot in common but I like her.  But every time she comes here she wants to move stuff back to how she had it and she just puts stuff there.  Its annoying I want stuff where I put it.  And its gotta be hard for her seeing it different then she had it.  So don't do it.  But I didn't have anyone tell me that before we got married so here I am 11 years later.

After we had been talking about what we wanted in a house and stuff for a while, we even looked at a few plans,  then Neil told his dad and his dad said well that's no good, a new house on a farm never raises property value.  Well I was quite annoyed but not knowing them like I do now and so not being as confident to say what I think around them I didn't say much.  But on the way home I told Neil I planned on living here for 20 or 30 years still, I wasn't worried about property values.  He said he was planning on that too.  But it made an impact on him anyways and so we put it off.  Then cow prices went down and we didn't have a lot of extra money and we got used to living in this house.

About 7 years ago we got a new well, we woulda needed it new hose or not so that was good, then about 5 years ago, we got the roof reshingled, they did a good job and it didn't leak!  Yay!  that was nice but there was a whole lot of water that had leaked in the house from before and I wanted to tear off the ceiling and fix it, cause I'm sure there was mold there so I started tearing off the worst marked tiles and then I went away for a scrap booking weekend and Neil was so proud that he replaced them.  Well I wasn't happy and mentioned it, never mind they don't make the big tiles anymore and he used a smaller size and it looked stupid.  We also got a sewer pipe replaced that went outside, and last summer we only had water to the toilet and bathroom sink.  That was real handy.  We spent most of the summer showering down at the local campground...which has real nice showers actually.

Then all this going on and Neil said we need to get a plumber and he might as well replace all our plumbing.  I said I think we should rethink this new house, cause its already been a roof, now plumbing, pretty soon sewer, and the basement walls, then the windows and new siding......   Well he didn't say anything and whatever, I know he needs time to think about stuff and make it his own idea.  Well in Aug last summer we went to Fort St John to visit my aunt and on the way home we stopped in Red Deer and he said we should look at some houses.  YAY!!!!  So we looked a a lot of them, from the big, no huge, ones to the smaller mobile home looking ones.  We decided on a ready to move (RTM) that they had on the lot there, we really liked it.  The people in there were super friendly and helpful but we were not ready to buy right away.

So we go home and I go for the weekend to the threshing and when I come home, he had the plumber out and he just did a temporary fix and made all our water work.  That was nice to come home and get to have a shower at home.  So we were decided, we didn't want to get it in the winter so we planned on going in the spring and ordering it for summer.  Then I hurt myself in February and so that was out so by the time we went in a decided on everything we wanted and the saleslady in Brooks was so slow (and it was branding season so we never got down as much as we wanted) we finally ordered the house and its coming October 10th.  Super excited!!!!!!

I got a few pics of the stuff going in, the rest will have to be a surprise until it gets here :)

(the outside...sorta. we have black trim, and different windows,

 and the bottom under the deck will match the siding,

 but this was the model on the lot)

(the floor plan, we are facing the bottom part to the lawn)

(the color of the cupboards, its licorice)

(the counter top is the laminate, and the back splash will be the white subway 

tiles with a row of the glass after 3 tile rows)

(and the lino, they discontinued this one so we got the same sort of pattern 

with wider boards and knot holes, I actually like it better)

(and we plan on a garage but not till next summer, and we were deciding on size 

so I just drew up a quick plan, looks like 30X32)

I didn't get pics of the carpet, its just a plain light grey, for the main bedroom, one spare bedroom and the living room.  The walls are owl grey and the trim is white.  The siding is Harvest slate with black soffits and eaves and trim.  I'm super excited, stuff is starting to come together, the 17th the guy is coming to put the pilings in and then we are getting the backhoe guy the say after to dig in the water and sewer lines, a septic tank and a cistern.....Oh ya we are having town water :)  We talked to the electrician and he figures easy to move power and phone lines from old house and they now run them right under the house rather than bery them so that easy, after the house is here he will come do that and hook everything up.

New Stuff

Since I was thinking of barrel racing and I realized my cutting saddle was too flat for it and I almost slipped out of it I was slowly working towards getting a new one.  I looked up a bunch and tried a bunch (what patient sellers, lol) and finally headed up to Stettler to try one that was more than I wanted to pay for a fun hobby.  I had no great ideas it was gonna fit, I actually told the lady I was probly wasting her time cause it wouldn't fit.  She said no problem she was gonna be there anyways and shock of all we put it on and wow was not too tight!  Hokey smokey!  I was so shocked!  I rode around in it for a while and wow did Jess ever move out.  It was like nothing before It was so weird.  Its a Martin Crown C and she said they were designed to sit quite a bit farther back and so that was kinda weird to but it sure seemed to work.  She talked about shims and Sheri Cervi's video on saddle fit and so when I came home after buying it and stopping to pick up shims I had to look it up.

Pretty cool and a totally different view on saddle fit.  Kinda made sense and the way Jessie liked it I figured had to be a good sign for her anyways....never had so much trouble with saddle fit as with her.  My cutting saddle fits her OK when shes fit but not very good when shes fat.  Which she likes to be fat, lol.  Anyways I took it for a spin at home the next day since it was nice out and still big giant steps and I got a few pics too.

And then the weather turned and I had to turn out the horses cause we had no water in the corral and so never got a chance to ride in it again.  I been using it this week and boy does it make me sit a lot different and the stirrups don't go short enough for me....I need to get them fixed but I don't wanna give up my saddle and so am thinking I will use my other stirrups on this saddle for now.  It was sitting a little low in the front so now I use a shim and its pretty perfect.

But before that, my trailer broke down, I didn't think it was that bad, I thought it needed a wheel alignment and so I booked an appointment.  I took it in and turns out it had big issues, the evener was only attached on one side, the springs were broken and pretty much he told me I shouldn't use it anymore.  Well I was thinking of trading it in in the spring and so I just decided to get it fixed to work again and took it in to trade.

I went to Airdrie Trailer sales.  I saw they had a used 3 horse Aluminum  which is what I wanted. I figured I would go look at it cause looked pretty new and it was a 2014 model how used could it be??  Well I went there on like the coldest day of the year and looked at it he was pretty sure it didn't even have a horse in it.  The lady bought it took it home and then took it there a week later pretty sure she needed a bigger one.  Well it was pretty plain but still nicer than my old trailer.  A few features I really like and so I went for it.  I like the dividers are solid and they have springs to hold them open when loading, that was nice my old trailer was frustrating if you didn't park perfectly level you had to hold them open while loading.  And it has a door stop to hold the door open, it has one big wide door which I wanted.  I also like the tack room, it has a step into it which is nice and no carpet although the salesman didn't like that I do now I don't have to worry about walking in there in the winter with wet boots.  The spare tire is in there as well which takes up a lot of space and there is no blanket bar but I have an idea of how to make one work in there.

I hooked it up after paying and headed home!  I was super excited!!!  I used it the next day actually to haul horses for teeth to the vet and then hauled 3 horses down to Brooks a few days after that to ride and could hardly tell I was pulling!  yay.  But the brakes are set a little strong and I don't know how to fix them its kinda frustrating.  But other than that I love it!!!  Im super excited about it :)